


Flash Drive

by doodles357



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, how many ways can i make them meet in different situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodles357/pseuds/doodles357
Summary: TJ finds a flash drive in one of the computers in the school library. The only reason he goes through the files is so he can find out who owns it. To his surprise, he finds a story that's really good but unfinished. He makes it his mission to track down the owner so he can find out how the story ends.





	Flash Drive

**Author's Note:**

> How many different ways can I make these two meet in different circumstances? Also, it's going to get a little bit meta up in here.

TJ all but sprinted into the library, only slowing to a walk as he entered the front door. Due to the fact that he forgot to set his alarm the night before, he had woken up late, with only half an hour before his first class started. Normally that wouldn’t have been that bad, but he had spent a good chunk of the night before finishing up an essay for his English class, and since the library had closed long before he had finished writing it, he had planned on stopping in before class started to print it off. However, by sleeping in, he had cut down his time in which to do so by a significant portion. He had thrown on the first clothes he could find, ran a comb through his hair, grabbed a protein bar, and sprinted out the door.

He sat down at the nearest empty computer and logged in. As though the machine could tell he was in a hurry, it logged him in slowly. Drumming his fingers anxiously on the table, his eye caught something. Sticking out of the front of the computer was a flash drive. It surprised him; most people used cloud storage and didn’t bother with those anymore. But someone had forgotten theirs in the computer. He was distracted by his computer finally pulling up the home screen, and he logged into his drive.

As he clicked print, he figured that he should probably drop the flash drive at the front desk. If someone had papers or other school stuff saved on there, they were likely freaking out about losing it. He ejected the drive before going to get his paper. When he got back to the computer, he checked the time. There were exactly three minutes left until his class started, and his professor for that class was the type that would lock students out if they weren’t in the classroom on time. Logging out, he shoved the flash drive into his pocket, grabbed his paper, and bolted for the door.

Later that afternoon, TJ collapsed on his bed in his dorm room. He had made it to his English class in the nick of time and had been able to turn his paper in without any issues, aside from his professor glaring at him as he skidded through the doorway of the classroom at the last minute. He had almost forgotten about the flash drive and realized that he never turned it in at the library. Pulling it from his pocket, he examined it thoughtfully for a minute before grabbing his laptop and plugging the drive in.

There were only a few documents on the drive, which surprised TJ. He figured it would have been full of assignments, hopefully with the owner’s name on them. One read ‘characters,’ another ‘outline,’ and a third said ‘final.’ He clicked on the one labeled ‘final,’ hoping it was a final draft of a paper. However, when it opened, he saw that it wasn’t formatted that way. Instead, the first line read ‘Insert Title Here,’ and then it launched into what TJ quickly realized was a story.

_Turning thirteen is exciting for most people, because it means they finally reached that magical time in their lives where they get to be a teenager. As exciting as it seems though, it’s usually not that interesting or life-changing of a day. Presents, cake, and celebrations, just like every other birthday, and then life goes back to just the way it was before. But Mandi’s thirteenth birthday was anything but ordinary. It started out with her rebelling against her strict mother by trading her bike in for an electric scooter. But it ended with her whole world shattering into a million pieces and rearranging into something that she didn’t quite recognize._

Intrigued, TJ read on. Soon he found himself sucked into a story of a thirteen-year-old girl who discovered on her thirteenth birthday that the woman she believed to be her cool, older sister was actually her mother, who had given birth to her as a teenager. The people she believed to be her parents were actually her grandparents, and she had no idea who her real father was. He became so engrossed with the story that he didn’t realize what time it was and was soon surprised to find himself sitting in the relative dark, as the sun had set without him noticing.

He got up to stretch out and turn on a light. Looking at the clock, he was shocked to see that he had been reading for well over an hour. The story had been so engaging that he couldn’t find a place to stop. And despite the fact that he had read for so long, he still had no idea who the owner of the drive was. He looked at the document again, and for the first time, realized that it was over a hundred pages in length. Whoever had written it was clearly intending to make it into a full-length novel. He went back to the drive folder and opened the other two documents. The ‘characters’ document was a list of the characters in the story with little notes next each one, describing the person. The ‘outline’ document had the bare bones of the story laid out. Neither had anything with the writer’s name.

TJ was stumped. He was sure that he would have found something to indicate the identity of the owner, but this person hadn’t put their name on anything. And judging by the length and depth of the story he was reading, they had put a lot of time and effort into writing it. As he pondered what to do, he couldn’t help but feel an irresistible draw towards the unfinished story. He had paused at a good point; the main character’s mom had just decided that she was going to propose to Mandi’s dad. He really wanted to find out what happened next. Glancing at the clock again, he figured that he had some time left to read before he needed to get started on homework.

Reopening the story document, he settled in. He needed to find out what happened next.

\----------------

Half an hour later, to his great disappointment, he found out that the story wasn’t finished yet. The last chapter ended with Mandi finding out that her parents had called off the wedding. The unknown author had typed _Chapter 14,_ but nothing followed it. TJ groaned out loud when he saw it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten sucked into a book like this, and now he had no idea how it was going to end. Plus, he still had no idea who had written it in the first place. Pondering his dilemma for a moment, he came to a sudden idea. Pulling up Facebook, he opened the college’s buy/sell/trade page that students used primarily for exchanging textbooks and other items.

He took a screenshot of the three documents listed on the drive, and then ejected the flash drive and took a picture with his phone. On the Facebook page, he started a new post with LOST AND FOUND in capital letters at the top.

_LOST AND FOUND_

_Found in the library this morning – a flash drive containing these documents. If you want it back, meet me in the coffee shop tomorrow at 3 pm._

After attaching the two photos, he hit post. He figured it might be awhile before the owner saw it, so he moved over to his desk to get started on homework. At one point, his roommate came it, tossed his backpack onto his bed, and left almost immediately. He had a girlfriend that he spent almost all his time with, and it often felt like TJ had a single room, which was fine by him. At least his roommate didn’t bring his girlfriend over a lot. The last thing TJ wanted was to be kicked out of his room constantly.

He checked the post before heading down to the dining hall for supper. A few people had liked it, but no comments yet. When he got back to his room after eating, there was still no response. He was starting to get antsy about it; not only did he want to be able to give the drive back, but he really wanted to meet the author and see if he could get the rest of the story. After finishing up the last of his homework, he pulled Netflix up on his laptop and proceeded to get comfortable. However, he had only gotten a few minutes into an episode of Parks and Rec when he heard a familiar _pling_ noise from his phone, indicating that he had a message.

Picking up his phone, he saw that it was from Facebook Messenger. He blinked at the unfamiliar name: Cyrus Goodman. His message read: _you have my flash drive?!!_

TJ swiped the message open, heart pounding. There was nothing else to the message, and he clicked on Cyrus’ picture to see his profile. He had several mutual friends with TJ, and he definitely went to the same school. His profile picture was the silhouette of a guy standing in front of a sunset, which didn’t help TJ identify him. Deciding to save the stalking for the time being, he navigated back to the messaging app.

**_TJ_ ** _: yes i do_

**_Cyrus_ ** _: i need that back!!_

**_TJ_ ** _: can you meet me tomorrow?_

**_Cyrus_ ** _: can you meet any earlier than that?_

**_TJ_ ** _: i have classes pretty much the entire day_

That wasn’t technically true, but TJ wanted to have a chance to sit down and talk to the guy about the _story. Quickly passing the drive off between classes wasn’t going to accomplish that._

**_Cyrus_ ** _: fine_

**_Cyrus_ ** _: three o’clock at perc place_

**_Cyrus_ ** _: don’t touch anything on it_

**_Cyrus_ ** _: please_

**_TJ_ ** _: okay sounds good_

**_TJ_ ** _: and i won’t_

TJ felt a leap of excitement at what was going to happen the next day. He couldn’t wait to meet this Cyrus guy and talk to him about his story. TJ had guessed correctly; he did seem pretty worried about what had happened to his drive. Clicking play on his episode, TJ settled back and got lost in his show once again.

\-------------

TJ had a hard time concentrating during his classes the next day. Not only was it a Friday, but he was going to meet Cyrus later. The day seemed to go more slowly than usual, and three o’clock seemed like it would never arrive. But finally, his last class ended, and he all but sprinted to the coffee shop. When he got there, he realized he was fifteen minutes early, so he got in line to get himself a drink while he waited. Settling down at a table, he pulled out his phone to play on while he waited.

He had done a little more cyber stalking the night before, so he had somewhat of an idea of what Cyrus looked like. Brown hair, brown eyes, tall and skinny. Pretty cute, not that it mattered. TJ figured he would be able to recognize him when he came in.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to. While he was looking at something on his phone, someone plopped down in the seat across from him. Looking up in surprise, he found himself face-to-face with Cyrus Goodman himself.

“Do you have it?” Cyrus asked without preamble.

“Hello?” TJ said, taken aback by the abruptness.

“Sorry,” Cyrus said, shaking his head slightly. “I’ve been freaking out about losing it and I’ve been a little on edge because of it.”

“It’s okay,” TJ said, pulling the drive out of his pocket. “It’s a lot to lose.”

Cyrus froze when he said that. “What do you mean?”

“Your story?” TJ said. “It looks like you spent a lot of time working on it.”

“You read it?!” Cyrus asked, looking slightly panicked. “I said not to touch anything on it.”

“You said that after I had already read it,” TJ countered. “And I didn’t mess with anything. I was only opening documents to see if your name was on one.”

“So, you didn’t read it,” Cyrus said, seeming to relax.

“Oh, no I definitely read it,” TJ said cheerfully. “The entire thing.”

Cyrus froze again. He definitely looked panicked now.

“Why?” he asked quietly, sounding worried.

“Well, I only planned on skimming it to see what it was,” TJ said. “But then I kept reading because it was really good. I couldn’t stop actually.”

“Really?” Cyrus asked. He looked surprised at the comment. “It’s just a dumb story I’m writing…it’s not like it’s good or anything.”

“Are you kidding?” TJ protested. “It’s really good. I couldn’t stop reading it! I don’t remember the last time I read a book that good. How did you come up with the idea?”

“Oh, well actually it’s true,” Cyrus shrugged. “My friend Andi – in middle school, she found out that her older sister was actually her mom. It was a whole thing. I was just retelling it in story form to practice writing. I couldn’t think of anything original, so I just stole the idea from something in real life.”

“That’s insane,” TJ said, sitting back in his chair.

“Yeah, it was pretty crazy,” Cyrus said, smiling for the first time.

“So, what happened?” TJ asked before interrupting himself immediately. “No, wait, don’t tell me. I’ll find out when I read the rest.”

“The rest?” Cyrus looked confused.

“Aren’t you going to finish it?” TJ asked.

“I mean, I want to,” Cyrus said. “I’m still struggling on figuring out where to end it. I mean, Andi’s life is still going on, so technically the story is still going on. It’s weird to think about. So I have to come up with some kind of end point still.”

“Makes sense,” TJ said.

“You…really want to finish reading it?” Cyrus asked, sounding hesitant.

“Definitely,” TJ said enthusiastically. “I was so bummed when I saw that it wasn’t finished. That’s why I reached out to find you.”

“What would you have done otherwise?” Cyrus asked. “Tossed the flash drive?”

“No, I was going to turn it in to the front desk at the library,” TJ explained. “But I was running late, and I didn’t have time. I was going to take it back, but then I read the story and had to find out who wrote it.”

“Well, you found me,” Cyrus replied.

“So, are you an English major?” TJ asked. Cyrus just laughed and said,

“Psych, actually.”

“Really?” TJ said in surprise. “You’re such a good writer. I thought for sure you’d be into English.”

“Writing’s a hobby,” Cyrus explained. “Something I do for fun. I don’t think I’m good enough to make a career out of it or anything. That’s why I’m going to be a therapist.”

“Wow,” TJ replied. “That’s intense.”

“My parents are therapists,” Cyrus explained. “It runs in the family.”

“I see,” TJ said. Cyrus didn’t sound super excited about it, but he barely knew the guy. Who was he to judge someone else’s major?

“So, are you in the story?” TJ asked, wiggling his eyebrows, causing Cyrus to laugh a little self-consciously.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I’m one of Andi’s – I mean, Mandi’s friends.”

“Simon?” TJ hazarded a guess at. It was the name closest to ‘Cyrus’ and he vaguely remembered the character saying something about his parents being therapists.

“Yup,” Cyrus said. “It’s pretty obvious, huh?”

“I mean, I didn’t know who you were until now,” TJ said. “But the names are pretty similar.”

Cyrus pursed his lips but didn’t say anything. An awkward silence fell over them for a moment. TJ realized he was still holding onto the flash drive and pushed it across the table to Cyrus.

“Here,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hold it hostage there. I just wanted to ask you about the story before you took off.”

“It’s okay,” Cyrus said, picking up the drive. “I was a little rude when I got here. It’s just…I spent a lot of time writing it, and I’m kind of proud of it. I was worried that all my hard work had just disappeared.”

“You’ve heard of cloud storage, right?” TJ asked teasingly, and Cyrus groaned.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know I’m the weird one, still using a flash drive. But I like being able to carry it around with me. It’s kind of like having a physical copy. You know, without having to actually print the whole thing out.”

TJ just chuckled. He sensed that they were about to part ways, and part of him didn’t want to. Despite their abrupt introduction, he had gotten to like Cyrus in the short time they were talking, and he was still intrigued by the story.

“Can I buy you a drink?” TJ asked, gesturing at the counter. His own drink was still sitting in front of him, untouched. Cyrus flushed slightly at the question.

“You don’t have to,” he said, not sounding very convincing.

“I want to,” TJ said, standing up. “Isn’t that the thing to do? Buy struggling writers a coffee?”

“How do you figure I’m struggling?” Cyrus asked, a smile twitching on his lips.

“You’re in college,” TJ shrugged. “What would you like?”

“A latte would be fine,” Cyrus said, smiling for real this time. TJ grinned back and headed up to the counter to order. A few minutes later, he was settled back down across the table from Cyrus, passing the drink over.

“So, have you written anything else?” TJ asked before picking up his own drink and taking a sip.

They fell into an easy conversation, taking turns asking each other questions about themselves. Some of Cyrus’ answers TJ was surprised to find he already knew. It seemed that he had peppered in quite a bit of himself into the story, even though his character wasn’t featured quite as heavily. But there was also a lot about Cyrus that he didn’t know, such as the fact that he had helped found the GSA at his high school, and that he almost had straight A’s every semester in both middle and high school but hadn’t quite made it because of gym class.

“How do you fail gym?” TJ laughed.

“You’re bad at physical activity!” Cyrus protested. “It’s not my fault I have no muscles.”

They talked well past the time that they had finished their drinks, and TJ was surprised to see that it had started getting dark out. Both of them realized that they needed to get going, but both were reluctant to do so. They exchanged phone numbers, and TJ made Cyrus promise to let him know when he had updated the book, so he could read it. As he walked away from the café, TJ couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he had connected so quickly with someone. Now he had a way to finish reading the book that had interested him so much, and the phone number of a very cute guy that he couldn’t wait to talk to again.


End file.
